Thursday, 9 June 2016

50% of students found the exam to be more difficult than they expected. See the results from our survey...

Learning from the experience of past CIMA Strategic Case Study students can be the recipe for success!

So it's been a couple of weeks since we launched our SCS Experience Survey, and the results beginning to emerge are very interesting.

Learning lessons from CIMA students who have been through the exam can really help you to achieve success. Find out below how difficult students found they exam, their most common mistakes, and where they felt they should have spent more time during their revision.

Don't take it lightlyWe asked students how difficult the exam was compared to their expectations:

The most important thing to note from this result is that nearly 50% of students found the exam to be more difficult than they expected, with only 12% of students stating they found the exam easier than anticipated!

This should leave you in no doubt about how seriously you should be taking this exam, and how much preparation will be required.

Time Management

The survey emphasised issues around time management for lots of candidates. Many students fail to prepare themselves for how they are going to answer as many questions as possible within the time limit.

The CIMA exam will ask a lot of you and you need to ensure you manage your time as effectively as possible.

Here are some quotes from the survey which reflect this:

"Plan and time management"

"Time management is crucial and the tasks required is difficult to
understand what they really asking from the
candidates"

"I
was pushed for time on every section"

Simple techniques such as planning your answers on screen and practising as much as possible before the exam, will help you get to grips with your time management.

Pre-seen Analysis
One of the earliest themes to emerge from the survey was around the analysis of the pre-seen.

Many students wished they had spent more time on this during their revision and emphasised the importance of doing so to future students:

"Focusing on pre-seen
materials"

"More research of the pre-seen"

"Analyse the pre-seen well. Work through many questions and know
what theory all the sections in the pre-seen relates
too."